Turkish Minister of Agriculture, Food and Animal Breeding, Mehdi Eker, has said that field-based support payments to hazelnut producers would continue to be given in 2012 and it was about to signed by the cabinet.

Inaugurating Anadolu Agency's (AA) photo exhibition "Hard-gotten hazelnuts" with Executive Board Chairman and Director General Kemal Ozturk in Ankara on Wednesday, Eker said that the exhibition made an important contribution to the art of photography via one of the most important agricultural products of Turkey.

Eker said that the exhibition was an outcome of an intensive, massive and a very difficult endeavour and thanked the photo journalists who reflected the cheer, sadness and excitement of the hazelnut pickers, including the ones coming from southeastern Turkey as seasonal labor force, with a great success.

Minister Eker suggested tea as the subject of the next thematic AA photo exhibition.

Stating that Turkey provided 75-80 percent of world's hazelnuts exportation, Eker said that hazelnut was an important element of Turkish culture, taking place in literature, arts, poems, music and folklore.

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